The analytical database created includes over 900 analyses of minerals, including garnets (341), chrome-spinels (38), ilmenites (160), zircons (210), apatites (62), titanites (51), perovskites (46) and micas (35). The book offers a brief historical background on REE distribution for each of the minerals and analytical methods for their determination; further, the main features of concentration of these impurities in the samples of different rocks and their manifestations are described and the regularities of REE distribution between coexisting phases, including parent melts, systematized available estimates of distribution coefficients are considered. REE isomorphism in these minerals is discussed as well as the possibilities of using data on REE distribution as typomorphic signs of determining the crystallization conditions of minerals. The numerous analyses of REE presented in this book can be used as reference data. Finally, there is an additional chapter on a new problem: the study of geochemical relations between REE and platinum group elements.

As an overview of modern data on the geochemistry of REE in minor and accessory minerals from rocks of mafic-ultramafic complexes and as a reference book, this work will be of interest to a wide range of specialists studying petrology and geochemistry of products of ultramafic and mafic magmatism, including ore mineralization, as well as for graduate and undergraduate university students in geology departments.

Table of Contents

Garnets

Brief survey of modern studies into the geochemistry of rare earth elements in garnets

General regularity of REE distribution in garnets of the most common of their parageneses

On the nature of sinusoidal chondrite-normalized REE patterns of garnets

Coefficients of REE distribution between garnets and coexisting melts

Coefficients of REE distribution between garnets and coexisting clinopyroxenes and other minerals

Some crystal-chemical aspects of the REE isomorphism in garnets

Chrome-spinels

Ilmenites

REE composition of ilmenites

Coefficients of REE distribution between ilmenite and coexisting phases

Zircons

Key regularities of REE distribution in zircons from some types of magmatic and metamorphic rocks

Coefficients of REE distribution between zircons and coexisting phases

On the isomorphism of REE in zircons and conditions of their crystallization

Apatites

The REE composition of apatites

The coefficients of REE distribution between apatite and melts as well as coexisting perovskites

On isomorphism of REE in apatites

Titanites

Perovskites

Micas

Some general regularities of REE distribution in the minor and accessory minerals of ultramafic, mafic and some other rocks

Geochemical relationship between REE and PGE in mafic and ultramafic rocks and their petrogenetic significance

About the Author

Felix P. Lesnov is Senior Research Fellow, Laboratory of Geodynamics and Magmatism, V. Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He specializes in research on mafic-ultramafic magmatism of folded regions (geology, petrology, petrochemistry, mineralogy, geochemistry, metallogeny), and he has (co-)authored more than 290 papers and nine monographs.